Facebook behaving like digital gangster, say UK MPs
LONDON:C ompanies like Facebook Inc. should not be allowed to behave like “digital gangsters” in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law, a hard-hitting report on “fake news” by an influential committee of the UK parliament said on Monday.
The final report on disinformation and “fake news”’ by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee examined leading lights in major online companies, including Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook, it says, intentionally and knowingly violated both data privacy and anticompetition laws. The committee makes a number of recommendations, including a compulsory code of ethics for tech companies overseen by independent regulator.
It also called for the UK regulator to be given powers to launch legal action against companies breaching code and a reform of current electoral communications laws and rules on overseas involvement in UK elections. Social media companies should be obliged to take down known sources of harmful content, including proven sources of disinformation, the committee says, after finding that electoral law in the UK is “not fit for purpose”.
Damian Collins, committee chair, said: “Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use everyday. Much of this is directed from agencies working in foreign countries, including Russia”.
“The big tech companies are failing in the duty of care they owe to their users to act against harmful content, and to respect their data privacy rights. Companies like Facebook exercise massive market power which enables them to make money by bullying the smaller technology companies and developers who rely on this platform to reach their customers”.